Anticipatory Grief 

It's likely that we have all experienced Anticipatory Grief without recognizing it or knowing it has a name. 💔. Add your knowledge and wisdom in the comments below! 🙏🏻

My beloved mom & friend is 84. I talk to her everyday. She knows everything about me & still loves me. I’m tearing up just thinking about losing her. I don’t want her to ever leave me & I’m fearful everyday. I’m also an autistic adult.

I am dealing with anticipatory grief surrounding the death of my husband, He has a very rare degenerative brain condition so that the nurses and doctors who care for him in the nursing home actually have no medical documentation on how to treat or care for his condition, We were told it was the rarest of the rare degenerative brain conditions, We are now in year 6 of this disease and he is still alive - if you can call it that. I cared for him at home the first 3 1/2 years before he became immobile and had to be put in a nursing home. His speech is unintelligible, although he can answer yes/no questions, but not always accurately. He is completely wheel-chair bound and must have help to eat. move and care for himself. My grief mostly surrounds the idea of how much longer will this go on?? My life is completely on hold until his death and some days I get angry that everyone else is living a life and I am just hanging in the balance. Other days I cry as I cannot imagine what kind of life I will have after his death. Thank you for acknowledging and speaking about this topic. It is so hard to find therapists or even material related to anticipatory grief. Thank you for your thoughts on this subject.

Husband passed from ALS. Knowing everything that was coming and the hell that would come after his death just about killed me.

Thank you so much for addressing this issue. I have found few resources about this topic. You could add having an elderly parent with extreme longevity, not knowing how much longer she will be here. I have been dreading losing her for years. She turns 100 this month and is still going strong.

Thank you for addressing this issue of grief. While my husband was fighting cancer (5 years), and while we had no idea whether or not he would recover from the chemo/radiation/immunotherapy treatments, I tried to prepare myself for what life would be like without him. He beat the cancer about 2 1/2 years in, but once it metastasized to the liver, I knew it was only a matter of time, even though we both held on to the hope that treatments could put the cancer into remission. There was even talk about a cure with surgery. I anticipated his death on and off for about 2 years. Once I experienced the loss, I had no idea how I would navigate through the post grief process It was entirely different from the anticipatory grief. Needless to say, it has been difficult, but I am doing much better since his death in July, 2022. I am sad to say, my little corgi passed away two weeks ago. I actually always thought that once my husband passed, my Ein would not stay here much past my husbands passing. I 'anticipated' he probably wouldn't last one year. In the end, my dog, who was Phil's baby, passed 6 months later. I am comforted in the thought they are together again in a better place. Still, going through grief all over again has been challenging. My dog was sick for quite some time and once he started crying out at night and needing attention every 2 hours, I knew it was his time to go too. At least I know how to handle the grief better now, and please know that your videos have been a great help to me.

My son passed away 6 months ago, I'm grieving that loss, my 83 year old mother has lived with me for the last 6 years. She has chf and many other illnesses and I feel I'm also grieving her pending death. So two grieves at once. I had never heard of intending grieve until watching your video. I I guess was right about what I'm feeling. Thanks

Thank you for posting this video. I have been grieving my parents in particular my father for years, starting more than ten years ago, they are still alive. I am seeing them less and less and keeping the distance. I wonder if one day I might regret not seeing them now that they are still alive, but I cannot control this. I am withdrawing myself from the family, people and the society. It is a very big grief and I am very worried that when my parents won't be there anymore, I'll seriously loose my mind.

Thank you for this information, I know I felt this grief as my husband became sicker and not better every day after a heart attack, I knew there was more bad news coming, I could feel it, I just did what I could to make every day our best together. I did not know from one day to the next. We talked, we cried, we remembered and reviewed our 26yrs together. I knew I was losing my person and he knew there was no cure for his body. Now I have the responsibility of caring for his father who is 94. He does live in a seniors home but the waiting for the day he passes is really hard. I lost my mom and my husband this year and I just want to get past the inevitable death and process of another loss and grief for another person I love.

Some good thoughts, thanks

I have a lot of questions still when it comes to anticipatory grief. Things I don't feel comfortable to put as a public comment. Thank you for your video.

My brother has a terminal cancer and my mother has Alzheimer's and grieving for their lives even though they're still here but I know time is short it's been going on for a year and a half

So many thoughts and feelings flashed through me as I watched this video. My heart still aches. I could share so much. But there is an aspect of anticipatory grief that is aggravated by HOPE. When my partner was diagnosed with cancer, I was told “it was treatable but not curable “. I couldn’t comprehend this. Could his condition be something that was merely chronic? He was 41 yrs old. Everyone reassured me that he was young and strong, he could beat this. I had to stay strong and positive for his sake. I continued to hope but every week brought just when there was good news, it was immediately followed by bad news. I remember a social worker simply ask me as I dissolved into tears, “you do know how sick he is?” An aspect of me understood but hope kept me in denial. I couldn’t comprehend but within two months my once healthy soulmate was gone. Hope had failed me. I would not have for a minute denied him the hope that he could beat this, it would have been too cruel, but in the end it instead destroyed me. I do not write this to say don’t hope but it did cause me to stop hoping for anything and I believe aggravated my grief. There is no proper way around this.

I am experiencing this grief right now as there is a very real possibility that my grandchildren will be forcebly adopted by social services. I don't know how I am supposed to go forward with this overwhelming pain.

Could you share your thoughts and guidance on what to expect and how to deal with a transition from Anticipatory Grief to "traditional" grief?

I felt this before my son took his brothers life and then his own…February 2023 🙏🏽

I’m sure this is a great video yeah when my mother died it was exactly like a car crash she went into hospital and within four weeks she was gone so there was no anticipation no warning no nothing. How long can I expect to cry every day not just crying it’s deep as I said in one of my other comments she was my soulmate she was my best mate she was everything. If it wasn’t for the church I think I would have drunk a bottle of morphine by now as I have a back infection and I have plenty of drugs that would stop me breathing but as I said my faith hasn’t driven me down that path yet

So hard to hear the audio

Anticipating a divorce, when trying unsuccessfully to save your marriage.

You have miss attopmme grief about cancer sorry about the spelling